Arts diary

Nanni Moretti storms out of Turin film festival after just two days as its director

Italian film-maker Nanni Moretti has quit his position as head of the Turin film festival after only two days. On December 27, Moretti agreed to be artistic director for the festival, which is dedicated to young and independent film-makers. His appointment followed an internal power struggle, as Turin organisers responded to new competition from the Rome film festival, as well as the starry annual event in Venice. But on December 29 Moretti abruptly stepped down, citing "an atmosphere of tension" after some key festival organisers strongly objected to his appointment.

"There has been talk of organising two competing festivals in the same city, someone suggested a lack of ethics, and some have even said that I would be an instrument for politicians to strangle the festival's independence," Moretti said. "With great pain I give up the job and leave you to your method problems, procedural disputes, personal grudges."

His resignation made front-page news in Italy, as did an appeal from Turin mayor Sergio Chiamparino urging him to reconsider. He has yet to do so. The festival's offices are closed, and email enquiries receive the automatic response: "I am out of office from January 1 and don't know when I will come back."

Curators to walk the thin blue line

The Metropolitan Police Authority recently told its art and antiquities squad, which now employs only four full-time officers, that it would be dissolved unless it becomes 50% self-financing by 2008. As a result, the unit is trying a radical new tack: recruiting curators and art historians to work as special constables. The scheme, dubbed Art Beat, is set to launch in April.

Detective sergeant Vernon Rapley told the Art Newspaper that officers are "not receiving as much information as we would like from the art trade" - hence the need to recruit from museums such as the Victoria & Albert and the British Museum in London, as well as from university departments and insurance companies. Helen Kennedy of the specialist crimes department said yesterday: "Some museum and Art Loss Register employees are due to start their specialist training at the end of January. Successful candidates will have full police powers."

Artist paints Mont Blanc - literally

Marco Evaristti, bad boy of the Danish art scene, spray-painted an entire iceberg red in Greenland in 2004. For the second instalment of his red-paint "trilogy", he now plans to paint the summit of Mont Blanc in France, too.

Evaristti, 43, insists that this is not a gimmick, but a serious statement intended to raise awareness of territorial boundaries and environmental pollution. "Whose mountaintop is it?" he said yesterday. "Why am I not allowed to decorate it? My change is visible but made with a non-toxic, organic product - as opposed to man's destruction of nature. I point to France as a sovereign state polluting with atomic explosions in many different sites."

The artist is keeping details of the project secret, "as the French authorities would stop me, labelling the idea insane". He does say, however, that he has assembled a 15-strong team to carry 1,200 litres of paint mixed with water up one of Mont Blanc's peaks, where the cans will be emptied to create a patch of colour covering 2,500 sq m.

Take a left at the Godfather of Soul

A stretch of 145th Street in Harlem, New York, may soon be renamed in honour of James Brown, who died on Christmas Day. The Reverend Al Sharpton, who was "like a son" to Brown, said he had met with local officials after district manager Yasmin Cornelius approached him with the idea. If the city council approves, the half-block stretch, from Lenox Avenue to Broadway, would be named "James Brown Way". It also happens to be the spot where Sharpton's activist group, the National Action Network, has its headquarters. "I love it. I think he's absolutely deserving of it," said Sharpton.